With the exception of the unusually high-profile case of JonBenet Ramsey, Boulder, Colorado is not exactly known for unexplained murders. Between 2003 and 2009, though, a series of mysterious missing persons cases were stumping police detectives, who did not initially connect them all. Eventually, they would be tied to one man: Scott Lee Kimball, a convicted fraudster and former FBI informant who was already serving a lengthy sentence as a habitual criminal.
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Three of Kimball’s victims were girlfriends of acquaintances from his time in prison due to fraud-related activities, and the fourth was his own uncle, Terry Kimball, all of whom were likely killed in the interest of covering up further criminal schemes. Lafayette, Colorado police detective Gary Thatcher, who specialized in fraud investigations, was among the first to connect the dots between the most recent and earlier disappearances after interviewing several of Kimball’s associates. After getting into contact with the FBI, Thatcher theorized that Kimball was feeding agents bogus information about his own criminal activities — and that in addition to being a prolific white collar criminal, Kimball appeared to also be a serial murderer, as the extent of his associations with the missing parties came into focus. Armed with enough evidence to convict Kimball as a habitual fraudster, Thatcher and his team arrested him in 2007, and in 2009, he was charged with four counts of murder, eventually receiving a 70-year sentence.
